UND92,96

A Tom Miller article on the status of a number of injured players was just posted on the Herald webpage. Here's the latest on Ziebarth:

I agree. And for anybody questioning whether Schmidt is willing to make difficult personnel decisions, keep in mind that he chose not to retain two or three defensive assistants from last year despite having pretty long histories with them. I'm sure that wasn't easy, but it looks to have been the right decision.

I think we want USD to lose. It would give them a fifth loss, so if we win out we are not in a position of being tied with them overall record wise with a head-to-head loss. As for SDSU, you could argue it either way. If they lose, they are going to be completely deflated when they come to the Alerus with four straight losses and probably zero confidence. If they win, they probably start feeling good about themselves for the first time in about a month, but it would make a UND win against them look better.

Obviously this team has shortcomings, and criticism is warranted, but with regard to last night's game, this has to be kept in mind (from Alex Faber's Herald article): Marley Curtis was barely able to play, and of course Micah is still out. If nothing else, it's going to be interesting to watch the development of Uelmen, Smith and the Curtises over the course of the season.

I feel like the real question is whether SDSU gets in at 7-5. Because I don't see them winning another game this season.

It appears that with both Demers and Ava Miller starting, that means there's going to be a lot of small lineups when one or both are out. I am assuming Ohnstad is backing up Ava, but she was in immediate foul trouble last night, so that created a problem since the options off the bench at the 4 are limited. Demers doesn't really have a backup, and she generally only plays 18-22 minutes per game, so that's an issue. VanderWal, the only other 5 on the roster, only played one minute, so I can only assume she's not going to play much again this season. Hanna Miller was the only player on the roster (aside from Klosterbuer who we know is out for the season) not to play, so I don't know if that means she's also injured. She's really the only other option on the roster to play at the 4 or 5.

Played 11 minutes in first half. No clue as to why she didn’t start.

Much like the men’s game last night, there are two very surprising starters.

I'm really interested to see who starts at the 3 and 4, and how deep the rotation is going to be.

Even in UND's best seasons under Lennon, there was always a highly disappointing loss to a team the Sioux should have beaten fairly easily. In 2001, it was the home loss to Omaha. In 2003, it was the season opener loss at Mesa State. It's all about how the team responds after the disappointing loss. We'll know a lot better what this team is made of after Saturday. I won't guarantee a win on Saturday, but I think Schmidt will have the team ready to play its best game of the season.

I skimmed the SDSU message board after Saturday's game, and they don't seem to think their o-line is very good this year. If true, regardless of who the QB is I'm not sure they're going to make much noise in the playoffs. The defense obviously also has some issues, even throwing out the NDSU game, judging by how many yards Murray St. gained two weeks ago. My guess is that they were a lot better early in the season (see Montana St. game as exhibit A), but once the inevitable injuries started piling up, they just didn't have the depth to withstand it, which is completely understandable under the circumstances.

Schmidt was quoted in Tom Miller's Herald article as saying it didn't appear serious.

I don't think a lot of thought went into these projections. I suspect they simply assumed that any future games would be won by the higher ranked team based upon the most recent polls, regardless of where the game is being played. For example, they are likely assuming that SDSU will win out, including at UND, which appears to be a pretty questionable assumption at this point.

Starting lineup today vs. Minnesota is Uelmen, King, Anderson, Marley Curtis and Natsvlishvili.

I'm not sold on NDSU being a top-four team. It looks like they're basically trying to get by with Feddersen and four guards. If Feddersen gets into foul trouble or gets hurt, they are in huge trouble as he's the only decent player they have taller than 6'6".

Ziebarth out for "about a month" per Tom Miller article just posted on the Herald website.

I don't know about a starting lineup, but I have a feeling we're going to see a lot of lineups throughout the season with two 4's and no true 5. Both Curtises and Natsvishvili probably all warrant a decent amount of minutes.

I'm curious as to why you think that?

Johnson is quite a story. Went from averaging a pretty modest 15 ppg as a junior in high school, then signing with MSU-Moorhead in November of 2023, then had a good senior year in high school but still not good enough to attract any dI attention, then started off as a redshirt for the first month or so of his freshman season before being forced into action due to injuries, and went on to average about 20 ppg as a true freshman. Now a preseason all-Summit pick. At the rate he's improving, he might be at a much higher-profile program as a junior and senior.

I get that preseason polls are meaningless, but I find it kind of fascinating that the consensus from league coaches, SIDs and media members is that Bergstraser at Denver was able to build a roster pretty much from scratch (only returned three players, two of whom basically didn't play at all), over the course of a few months, better than Sather put together in year seven.

After the predicted top two, it's a complete mystery given how few proven players are returning for the other seven teams. I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if UND ends up as high as third. There will be a better head coach, better depth and hopefully better 3-point shooting this season.

I believe just one.

Per Jack Michaels, apparently Abby Duchscherer, the 2022 Ms. Basketball from Kindred and currently a softball player at Alabama, is going to transfer to UND after this school year to play basketball.

I went back and watched the first half of that game. Yes, Montana definitely struggled on defense. Both teams moved the ball well in the first half, and each had one costly turnover. CWU is a good, but certainly not great dII team. They are currently ranked in the 20's in the d2football.com poll. UND ran for over 200 yards against Montana last year, and won despite Simon going 11-24 for just 97 yards and a pick. If Kaminski plays like he has through the first two games, UND has a good chance.

I'm not thrilled about it, but playing three non-dI games has been the norm for the past several years. USD, St. Thomas, Omaha, Denver and ORU are all doing the same. Only the xDSU's aren't (NDSU has two such games, and SDSU has one). KC hasn't announced their non-conference schedule yet.